


A Treat When You Are Down

by LogicalParafox (Solitarysynonym)



Series: Larsadie Ficlet a Week Prompt Challenge [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:53:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarysynonym/pseuds/LogicalParafox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the revelations of Horror Club, Lars tries to be a helpful listener but his lack of practice works against him.</p><p>For SoggyWarmPockets' August Larsadie Ficlet Challenge</p><p>Prompt: Write a conversation that may have happened between Lars and Sadie after they saw the flashback scene the gem projected in Horror Club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Treat When You Are Down

“So… Where did it take you anyway?” Lars asked. 

Sadie’s chin slipped off her palm when she looked over at him. “Huh? What?” 

Lars stared out the front windows, frowning at nothing. His shoulders were up high enough that they almost touched his gauged earlobes. “When the lighthouse… ate you,” he said to the empty store. She could barely see his jaw move with his shoulders so in the way. “Where did you go?”

She looked down at her hands, stretching out her fingers on the counter as she tried to corral her thoughts. “I don’t really remember…” she said slowly, stretching out her time. Red light. The floor opening up under her feet. Darkness. Anger. Then shouting and more red light and heartbeats and crunching sounds and noise and then… nothing. She was in a pile of rubble and no one was dead, much to her surprise. “It was just…. dark? And then I was crawling out of that pile I guess.” 

Sadie continued to stare at her hands. She could see his long fingers twitch the way they did when he was angry. She had studied him so long from within her one-sided longing that his movements were as familiar as her favorite book. Long fingers that had felt so fierce and hungry against her when they kissed, pulling her into him. Dry and cracked but welcome when he had curled around her that night on the island. His hands clenched into fists and she felt only resignation. Once his anger had been devastating, back when she thought she could win him over by being accommodating and kind. Now… 

“Don’t give me that Sadie!” Lars snapped, thumping his fists on the counter and glaring at her. She looked up at his face for the first time all day. He was wearing the glowing skull plugs again, the same as that night. “I heard you cry out!” he growled through clenched teeth. “Where did you go!”

His anger no longer made her wilt and back down. His shouting lit a spark inside of her. Maybe their time on the island had not changed him the way she had hoped, but it had certainly changed her. “I said I don’t remember,” Sadie said coldly, holding his gaze with her own as she straightened. As always happened, he lost his glare almost immediately, leaning back away from her. Lars no longer intimidated her. She was done being accommodating. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” 

In the silence that followed her words the unspoken _unlike you_ almost seemed to echo. 

Lars’ shoulders drooped and he folded his arms over his chest, shoulders hunched again. “I just…”

“We came out of it just fine,” Sadie interrupted, turning back to the counter and carefully setting her open hands on it again. The cool surface steadied her. “Or I did at least.”

Lars sighed and reached up to shove his hair back, then forward, fluffing it in agitation. “It’s not that I’m not glad,” he mumbled, hunching over the counter and looking down at its familiar surface, unable to meet her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry you got involved, all right? That monster wanted me and it took you instead… I just… I didn’t want you to be… to be having nightmares because of me.” 

Sadie sighed. “I really don’t know what happened. It was dark and I could hear muffled shouting and then there was a crunching sound and some light and I could stand up and then everything was back to normal,” she said, stretching her arms up. She’d had a dream about being crushed last night but he didn’t need to know that. It hadn’t even been that bad and no one had gotten hurt. Or at least… “What about you? That gem thing playing back when you and Ronaldo stopped being friends had to be pretty traumatic.” Sadie was itching to ask him for more details. She had known that he scorned Ronaldo but then who DIDN’T Lars scorn apart from Jenny, Sour Cream, and Buck. Sadie had never realized there was any cause beyond Lars’ general attitude toward everyone. 

Lars groaned and slumped over the counter. “Whatever!! It didn’t matter and I don’t care!” he complained into the smooth countertop. 

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Geeze Lars FINE we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I was just asking because you seemed upset. And I hadn’t known that you and Ronaldo had ever been friends, but we don’t have to talk about it,” she concluded, patting him gingerly on the shoulder as her eyes stung. She looked up at the ceiling, taking a slow deliberate breath through her nose and focusing on all of the scents she could smell. Donuts, of course. Sugar. Some slight mechanical oil and grease smells from the abundant fridges. Metallic tang from the coins in the cash register. A lingering very faint trace of the disinfectant sprays they used on the counters and floor. She looked around the store again when she was sure she was back in control of herself. 

She headed out from behind the counter, needing some motion and some distance from the silence that stretched between them. Lars’ reluctance to open up and share was nothing new, but it still had the power to hurt. Briskly she checked the cups and cup lids, straightening the stirrers and snagging the temperature logs and beginning to do the rounds of the fridges.  
If he’d asked she would have told him that she actually thought he was in the right. Plus he’d just been a little kid. Sadie sighed and continued jotting down numbers, crouching to see the thermometers. She took a step back, squinting up at the top of the Lion Lickers fridge and trying to see the digital readout. 

“It’s at negative 2,” Lars called from the counter. She glanced over to see that he was no longer slumped dramatically but instead had his feet propped up. Sadie made a mental note to disinfect the counter again when he stopped or before they served any more donuts. 

“…You can see it from all the way over there?” Sadie asked. 

“Yeah ‘cause I’m not a shrimp like you,” Lars said in something like his usual mocking tone. When she just stared at him in surprise his shoulders slumped slightly. " 

Sadie could practically see the apology forming in his mouth as the tension in the air between them mounted. Too many near death experiences in too short a time and not enough space to reset. Resolved, she squared her shoulders. “At least I’m not pissing off magical poltergeist gems!” she retorted with feigned bravado, watching his face. 

Lars froze, his mouth already opened but the apology was dying on his lips unspoken. Slowly his smirk returned. “Yeah well at least I don’t get KIDNAPPED by magical poltergeist gems!” he threw back, his grin widening. “Getting eaten by the floor? Who even does that?”

“People without ridiculously gangly limbs!” Sadie replied loftily, nose in the air as she turned back toward the fridges, grinning as she jotted down the date and time to finish the entry. 

“Awww Saaa-diiiieeee!!” Lars whined. “They’re not that long!! It’s not my fault you’re so short you’re practically STEVEN’S height!! LOOK AT MY LEGS AND TELL ME THEY’RE NOT GANGLING!!”

“Well I can’t do that because they are clearly gangling,” Sadie said smugly, flapping the handful of napkins she was restocking with at him. "You look like a stork." 

Lars made an inarticulate garbled sound of rage and slumped over the counter again, mumbling complaints against it. Sadie finished her rounds with a smile on her face. 


End file.
